National Transportation Safety Board

This investigation focuses on battery fire, not Autopilot; police say car was speeding

(Newser) -
Two teens were killed in Florida Tuesday night when a 2014 Tesla Model S went off the road, ran into a concrete wall, and burst into flames—and now the National Transportation Safety Board is investigating, making this the fourth accident involving Tesla vehicles that the NTSB is probing, the...
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It showed smiling faces minutes before Monday's accident

(Newser) -
An eerie video posted to social media by one of six victims of a fatal plane crash in Arizona Monday night shows a smiling group, packed into the six-seat plane, minutes before disaster struck. The Arizona Republic identifies three of the victims: James Pedroza was a VIP host at the...
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NTSB says it's 'too early to tell' why it was going so fast

(Newser) -
The Amtrak train that derailed in Washington state Monday morning, killing at least three people , was speeding, officials say, and not by a trivial amount: The train was going 80mph in a zone where the limit was 30mph when it came off the tracks on an overpass between Tacoma and...
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Pilot's wife was sick with cancer: family

(Newser) -
After a couple was killed when their plane crashed into a snow-covered mountain in Alaska, their adult children found a silver lining. Cecilia Matter, 63, was suffering from cancer and didn't have much longer to live, they told KYUK at the time of the crash in December. It would...
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The charges include vehicular homicide

(Newser) -
School bus driver Johnthony Walker, 24, was arrested Monday night and charged with five counts of vehicular homicide, reckless endangerment, and reckless driving over Monday's deadly school bus crash in Chattanooga , the Chattanoogan reports. Initial reports stated that six children died in the horrific crash, but Fletcher told reporters...
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They say movie paints them as the bad guys, but they weren't

(Newser) -
Sully, the Capt. Chesley Sullenberger biopic currently getting rave reviews , needed some villains other than the geese that flew into the engines of the plane the pilot was flying during the "Miracle on the Hudson." Those villains: the accident investigators, who can be seen in the film's...
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(Newser) -
The results of a "detailed and lengthy" probe into an Amtrak engineer's cellphone use on the day of the deadly derailment in Philadelphia hasn't turned up any shockers. An analysis of call data, texts, cell phone tower transmissions, and data relating to Amtrak's on-board WiFi system...
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Brandon Bostian made calls and texted day of the crash, but unclear when

(Newser) -
The Amtrak engineer who says he doesn't remember anything about the train he was operating flying off the tracks in Philadelphia on May 12 used his cellphone the day of the crash to make calls and text—but it's still unclear whether he was doing so while operating...
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(Newser) -
The surviving pilot of the Virgin Galactic spaceship that tore apart over the Mojave Desert was thrown clear of the disintegrating craft and did not know his co-pilot had prematurely unlocked the re-entry braking system, federal investigators said today. In its update on the still-evolving investigation, the National Transportation Safety...
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(Newser) -
Last year, a group of former US investigators including former NTSB investigator Henry Hughes petitioned the NTSB to re-open the investigation into the 1996 crash of TWA Flight 800, but the agency yesterday announced it had "denied the petition in its entirety." The petitioners argued that the crash...
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City insists rescuers didn't kill Ye Meng Yuan

(Newser) -
A girl thrown from a plane that crashed at San Francisco International Airport died before she was twice run over by fire trucks , according to a city-issued report that contradicts a coroner's finding that the teen survived the crash and was killed by the vehicles. Instead, the city said...
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Union lawyer confirmed report that driver was in a 'daze'

(Newser) -
The National Transportation Safety Board has kicked the Association of Commuter Rail Employees out of its investigation of the Bronx train derailment, after a union lawyer said a little too much about it. Engineer William Rockefeller "basically nodded" at the controls, falling into "a daze," union general...
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Lighting expert, 3 others mourned as inquiry begins

(Newser) -
A sad twist in yesterday's horrific train derailment in the Bronx: One of the four people killed when the train came off the rails at a riverside curve was lighting and sound expert Jim Lovell, who was on his way to help set up the famous Rockefeller Christmas tree...
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Top concern is slow speed during descent; still no sign of mechanical failure

(Newser) -
The continuing investigation into the crash of an Asiana Airlines plane still hasn't spotted any mechanical trouble—meaning it's likely that pilot mistakes were to blame for the disaster, Sky News reports. National Transportation Safety Board chair Deborah Hersman offered new information about investigators' findings, with concern centered...
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Investigators unsure of its source

(Newser) -
Clues to what may have caused the Asiana Airlines crash this weekend continue to emerge . The latest: The plane's pilot said that while flying at 500 feet, he was blinded by light, investigators say. "It was a temporary issue," says National Transportation Safety Board chair Deborah Hersman,...
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Landing system had been down for weeks

(Newser) -
"It was only a matter of time before something like this happened." That's one pilot's take on the headline-grabbing Asiana Airlines crash that left two people dead and 182 injured. The San Francisco International Airport was primed for disaster, pilots tell Der Spiegel , because a landing...
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Soldotna crash is state's deadliest in decades

(Newser) -
All nine passengers and a pilot were killed yesterday in Alaska's worst aviation accident in more than 25 years. A de Havilland DHC-3 Otter air taxi crashed just after 11am at the airport in Soldotna, around 75 miles southwest of Anchorage, the AP reports. The aircraft was operated by...
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But cockpit voice recorder reveals nothing was obviously wrong before that

(Newser) -
Some news from the cockpit voice recorder of Asiana Airlines Flight 214 is finally in: the jetliner tried to abort its landing and come around for another try 1.5 seconds before it crashed at San Francisco airport, says NTSB chief Deborah Hersman. There was also a call to increase...
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Train cars derail, slam into overpass in Missouri

(Newser) -
The nation's bridges and overpasses are proving particularly vulnerable to having their support systems knocked out, with a highway overpass in Missouri becoming the latest victim, reports the AP . The span partially collapsed yesterday after a train derailment sent rail cars smashing into support columns, causing two 40-foot sections...
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Regulator thinks legal blood alcohol content should be 0.05%

(Newser) -
How much can you legally drink before getting in a car? The National Transportation Safety Board thinks the answer right now is "too much," so this morning it voted to lower its recommended legal blood alcohol content limit for drivers from 0.08% to 0.05%, ABC News...
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